Category Archives: Currently Reading

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Last week I read two of the books I picked up at the Suffolk Author Festival.

Orphans Amelia and Jonah Mathews have parlayed her modest psychic talent into a comfortable life. But a head injury increases that talent far more than she is prepared for. When she wakes from her coma, and sees a ghost for the first time, her reaction lands her in the notorious insane asylum Blackwell’s Island.

While Jonah searches for his sister, Amelia attempts to survive. Finding an ally in new doctor, Andrew Cavanaugh, they discover a terrible murder for hire conspiracy.

Highly Recommended. I hope Murphy continues this series. The characters are appealing and the story is un-put-downable.

The Bronze Compass begins with a bang as Lily, an American spy in Nazi Germany, watches as her contact commits suicide rather than be taken by the Gestapo.

A harrowing flight, with no food or resources, through Germany to safety behind the American lines ensues. Lily does find some help along the way, particularly from a stray horse, but her success rests primarily on her own resourcefulness.

This was an exciting suspense/spy novel. My only criticism is that Butler devotes several chapters at the end to wrapping up all the story threads. These final chapters dilute the excitement of the bulk of the story, and could probably and more effectively been condensed into an epilogue.

Recommended with that caveat.

early F

Currently Reading

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I wil be reading some of the books I bought at the Suffolk Book Festival. Murder Strikes a Chord by Heather Weidner is the first.

When Cassidy inherited her grandmother’s property and event venue business, she also inherited her grandmother’s four sixty plus friends, the Pearly Girls, who wear their pearls everywhere.

In this outing, Cassidy has arranged a nostalgia tour for several rock bands popular during the eighties. The Weatherman are the headliners; that is, until the lead singer and primary songwriter is founded garroted.

Since the relationship between the band members is testy, suspicion immediately falls on them. But Johnny Storm has lived the rock and roll lifestyle so there are plenty of other suspects.

At the same time Cassidy is investigating the murder, and trying to run a business, she is dealing with the mayhem caused by the Pearly girls.

A funny and light-hearted mystery. Lots of fun.

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Revenge in Rubies is the second in the Harriet Gordon Mysteries.

When the young wife of a British officer is murdered in her bedroom, the military closes ranks to keep Inspector Curran out. Harriet realizes her friendship with the victim’s sister-in-law might prove useful and she calls upon the bereaved family to offer comfort. Other murders quickly follow and both Harriet and Curran are soon in the killer’s sights.

Both of them must deal with their own demons before they can solve this mystery.

Another winner from A. M. Stuart. I love this series. Highly recommended.

I also read Dance of Bones by J. A. Jance.

Big Bad John Lassiter is convicted of the murder of his best friend and partner Amos Warren and sent to prison. Thirty years later his daughter, who he has never met, wants the case reopened. Brandon Walker is reluctant but agrees to look into it and finds that there is more than a reasonable doubt that Lassiter is innocent.

A parallel story involving Lani, Walker’s adopted daughter, intersperses the main story. The stories and rites of the Tohono O’odham tribe are a big part of this half of the novel.

The two stories meet, separate, meet separate again and again, finally joining for a blowout ending.

This is the first that draw J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker together in one book, which is interesting.

Recommended with reservations. There are a lot of characters. And, with the tribal stories, and the two halves of the mystery all happening at the same time, it starts to get a little confusing. But there is no doubt there is a lot going on and it keeps a reader’s interest.

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Sleep in Heavenly Pizza (the fourth of Mindy Quigley’s Deep Dish Pizza series) starts with a bang at a holiday party for a wealthy family. Delilah follows one of the women upstairs and quickly realizes something is going on. The undercurrents continue, culminating in the discovery of bare feet and ankles protruding from a snow mound at the annual snow sculpture festival. Delilah identifies the feet and Capone, the detective in charge, and her boyfriend, reveals that the body also wore no clothes.

What is going on?

Added to this puzzle is Melody’s jealousy of the wealthy friend of Delilah’s niece, who is flirting with the sexy bartender, and Rabbit’s jumpiness. What is going on with him? A recovering alcoholic, and a felon, he has been a model employee up to now. Delilah worries he has fallen off the wagon.

Another fun and charming cozy. The recipes at the back are an added bonus.

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The thistle and the rose, by Linda Porter, is a biography of Margaret Tudor.

Sister to Henry VIII and wife to James IV of Scotland, Margaret was married by age 14. James was almost thirty. She bore James six children, although only two survived: James V and his younger brother (who also died young.) Margaret was widowed in her early twenties when James was killed at Flodden.

A woman in a very patriarchal time, and in a foreign country, Margaret fought hard to hold on to the crown. The angry nobles of Scotland put the Duke of Albany over her as regent and her two boys were removed from her care. She was confined to Stirling Castle. This, despite her husband’s will, which specifically named as regent of his sons.

After a hasty remarriage, a disaster as the one that followed, and seven months pregnant, Margaret escaped captivity and fled to England and the not so tender embrace of her brother. Henry resented her, and resented him in turn and refused to obey his commands or allow him to control his life.

Margaret was really a remarkable woman. Her son, James V, became king largely because of his mother’s efforts.

The biography reads almost like fiction and is quite captivating. Highly Recommended.

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I read several books while I was on vacation (somewhere warm!), I read several books. But I want to focus on one: Three inch teeth by C.J. Box.

This is one of the newest (24 of 25) by Box and continues his Joe Pickett series.

This reads less like a mystery than an adventure story since we know from the beginning what is actually happening. The novel begins with a bang when the young man courting Sheridan, Pickett’s daughter, is attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. The situation rapidly becomes far more complicated when there are multiple murders all over Wyoming.

Simultaneously, Dallas Cates, a violent prisoner who swore vengeance on Joe, his friend Nate, and others is released from prison. He hooks up with Soledad, another enemy of Nate and Joe, and the two plan to murder the men they see as their enemies.

Action and violence filled. My own criticism is that MaryBeth plays a very small role in this one.

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This past week I read two books that could not be more different, both suggested to me by Amazon.

While I read Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan, I kept thinking that it had a very old fashioned feel. The action takes place at a Christmas Party, at a fancy house, in the snow. The detective, Mordecai Tremaine, is a bland fellow with piece-nez.

Christmas morning, the guests are shocked to find the body of a fellow guest wearing a Santa suit. He is the guardian of a young girl. (This is where the old-fashioned nature appears; the description of the girl, and the other women in fact, is very dated.) As usual, as Tremaine investigates, he discovers everyone has secrets, from Benedict Grame’s sister (planning to elope) to the seemingly dull married couple, to Benedict himself.

Dated in some respects but the mystery holds up. Recommended.

The second book I read was Singapore Sapphire.

Harriet Gordon has moved to Singapore to live with her brother after a stint in Holloway prison for her activities as a suffragette. Her brother is a minister and the headmaster of a boys’ school. Desperate for some income, she advertises her services as a stenographer and typist. When she goes to the home of her first client, Sir Oswald Newbold, to retrieve her typewriter, she finds his body. This introduces her to Robert Curran, the Detective Inspector of the Police force. Needless to say, Harriet involves herself in the investigation. She develops a friendship with Curran, something she wishes would be more. But he is already involved with a beautiful Chinese woman.

This mystery has it all: interesting characters, an exotic and well-drawn locale, and a captivating mystery.

HighlyRecommended.

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On the recommendation of a friend from my writing group (Mally Becker of the Mavens of Mayhem), I read Murder once removed by S.C. Perkins.

The detective/protagonist is a genealogist who researches family histories. She is researching the family history of Gus Halloran and discovers an ancestor was murdered. Halloran wants to know who murdered his ancestor and Lucy narrows down the field to two possibilities. Halloran chooses Applewhite, the ancestor of a current state senator.

Things spiral out of control. Files and Photos are stoles from another descendent and Lucy is threatened.

The mystery turns out not to be so simple and, of course, involves property and money.

I loved this. The characters, not just Lucy but her best friends Roxanne and Serena, are fun and the information about genealogy and family relationships is fascinating.

Highly recommended.

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I’ve been a fan of Elaine Viets since she wrote the Dead End jobs mysteries. (Very funny if you haven’t yet read any.) A few years ago, she turned to a new series. Angela Richman is a Death Scene investigator which is fascinating to read about in itself. A Star is Dead is the third in the series.

Angela becomes involved in the death of a famous, but now older movie star, Jessica Gray. She has transitioned to a stand up comic. As the last bit, she has three homeless women come on the stage and strip, humiliating them, while delighting most of her audience.

Jessica is suffering a severe respiratory disease and during a coughing fit, seizes and dies. Murder of course. And Angela’s good friend Mario, hair stylist extraordinaire, is arrested for the crime. Angela is determined to prove his innocence. She is convinced that someone else, probably one of the three members of Jessica’s coterie, committed the crime.

At the same time, one of the homeless women is murdered and Angela looks into a few other crimes.

I enjoyed the mystery and did not guess who Jessica’s murderer was. My only complaint is that Angela and the police are so obtuse they don’t pick up several of the clues, clues I thought were obvious. Still, an enjoyable mystery. Recommended.

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The Orchid Hour by Nancy Bilyeau is a historical mystery set in the 1920s.

After the death of her husband, Zia De Luca lives a quiet life working in the public library and her in-laws store as she raises her son. But when a regular patron is murdered outside the library, Zia is questioned by the police. Shortly after, someone comes into the store to question Zia and then her father-in-law is murdered in his store. A man is arrested but Zia is positive Nettuno is not guilty.

Zia realizes that to find the answers, she will have to investigate herself. Through a connection with her cousin Salvatore, and using her maiden name to hide her identity, she goes to work for an upscale speakeasy called The Orchid Hour. Will she find the murderer of the library patron and her father-in-law before the mobsters find out who she really is?

I really enjoyed this well written historical mystery. My own complaint is that the ending is wrapped up very quickly. But the characters are fascinating and the mystery gives a very good picture of the Italians in New York in the Twenties. Recommended.